America's Top Model Season 19

For the record, this season of Top Model is WEIRD... In an attempt to make top model seem progressive and interactive, they posted the photos on facebook in Spring and had people comment, like, and all that. Then now, during the already recorded episodes, they act like the social networking stuff is current and live. It some weird trick-type-thing: The show makers are hoping that viewers don't know any better (don't search and read up), so that they will actually think the interaction is current and that their own viewpoint matters. Maybe their opinion would matter a tiny bit if they knew anything about this social media component during filming, but not if they are tuning in for the show now. It is strange and confusing to work in a "faked-live" component, to trick the viewer into feeling useful.

Anyhow, they some ideas that aren't bad, like having college contestants and themes around that.

But I don't care much for this season so far.

1. The "faked-live" thing.
2. Because it is college-themed, they mention "Tyra's degree from Harvard" a bunch. A 9-week certificate program is not a Harvard Degree. I don't mean to sound elitist or anything, but that is not anyone's definition of a "Harvard Degree."
3. The complete cast change could have been okay. I do miss Jay Manuel and J Alexander, but they probably had other things to do, so it probably did not hurt them. Or any of the other judges, who are accomplished in their own right and used to change every few seasons anyway (except Nigel). But, since this season also has the social media thing, they have a guy who is famous on YouTube delivering the "Tyra Mail" and they have video clips and quotes from fans who did the Spring commenting stuff. It's odd extra stuff that doesn't really fit for me. I don't know about or care about the random YouTube guy or the non-expert opinions, especially if they aren't "live."
4. To make the "faked-live" thing work, they need all the contestants to participate in all the photo shoots so the numbers don't go down (so the people interacting in the Spring don't know who wins). So there's an online series to follow just to watch the eliminated people (who I usually forget about once they are gone, especially the first half or so) do their photos and one will get to come back. Yay? I don't care, really. Since I know they only did that to have pictures of everyone for the Spring social media interaction, it just seems like a falsified after-elimination-competition so they could get something out of having to take the extra photos. It just feels fake. I guess that should fit, but it's in-our-face-fake this season.

My normal downloading site is down, but it seems I need to work on tracking down the other country top model shows and just watch them instead of this season. Yes, I know I will watch this anyway, but there are so many things that bother me about this season. I just feel as a viewer they expect me to buy into the falseness of this season, like they expect the viewers not to know any better or think, at all. Give me some credit, especially during the "college-themed season."

America's Top Model Season 18

I was let down with the all-star season (cycle 17) - there wasn't live stuff except the first episode and there were only two or three girls I really liked and they didn't win. Plus the weird cut/ refilming of the season finale.

Anyway, having watched all of Britain's next top model, I am super excited for this US season because half of the contestants were previous UK contestants. I don't expect to recognize them all, but I am excited that the shows are colliding. :) I find it funny that the first complaints are about not understanding the accent. After watching plenty of non-US shows, I don't have that problem and forget that it can be a problem for some.

This is a fun twist because the US ones were starting to bore me. Now, if Tyra can avoid making it all about her, I might really enjoy this season.... Here's hoping!

Spicy and Sweet

I love spicy foods. And I have recently found that I like spicy chiles (cayenne) with just about everything (the only exception I can think off offhand would probably be with caramel, but I could be persuaded otherwise). I like it with savory foods and with sweet. Here's how it happened:

This past summer, I tried Trader Joe's chile mango floes, sweet mango popsicles with spicy chilli powder. They were good but confusing - a very spicy frozen snack. I had never tried such a combination, but heard that similar sweet with spicy combos are popular in South America.

When it got colder, I tried making some Aztec hot chocolate. At the time, I had a specific recipe I followed to make the spicy hot chocolate drink. This I thought matched better, hot sweet drink with spicy.

Now, recently, I was shopping at Trader Joe's and picked up some dried mango with cayenne (chile spiced mango) to give that a try. Love it. Not as confusing like the popsicles because they don't have a temperature component, just the flavor aspect - the spicy with the sweet.

Today, in lieu of my regular thermos of coffee, I have made Aztec hot chocolate from memory and am enjoying that very much. Here's the general recipe (I didn't measure anything): hot chocolate packets ~1packet for 10oz water, cayenne powder ~1tsp, cinnamon ~1tsp, hot water. Mmmm, sweet and spicy. Give it a try if you like spicy stuff.

the Social Network movie

It took me forever to watch The Social Network and then longer to finally post this. I don't have much for a review - it was a good movie, that's pretty much all there is to it. Not an action movie or comedy, more like a based-on-life character study, so it was informative and interesting. Not to say they may not have made some characters more unlikeable or likeable for movie-purposes, but it is an entertaining adaptation of reality.

Most (all?) of the outdoor college campus scenes where filled here at Johns Hopkins, so I had been meaning to watch it eventually (no matter how the movie did) so that I could keep on eye out for the Hopkins scenes, specifically the ones with my office building since I know they changed the exterior for a few days so it could say Harvard and the name of one of their buildings.

So this will be quick, mostly listing times in the movie that were shots of my campus. Mainly the beginning credits (that caused a re-route of my walk home one evening) and then a few other short walking scenes.

I was actually reminded to watch this because there have been spotlights and cameras off-campus this past Fall for other filming. The upcoming HBO show Veep was using Baltimore for scenes that are supposed to be Washington, DC.

Based on the version of Social Network I watched, here are the times that show Hopkins:
5:55 to 7:37, of which 6:14 was at the time of filming my walk home that got rerouted due to filming and 7:10 is the breezeway (overlooks the 'lower quad' and my building, Latrobe, can be seen)

7:22-7:34 Latrobe! (my office building/ civil engineering and mechanical engineering building) is used as the exterior of the Harvard dorms

11:27-11:36 more Latrobe!

19:28-19:53 Shaffer Hall, in the same quad as Latrobe


So that was additionally interesting for me because of the Johns Hopkins connection.